First AG brew on 40Lt Guten - Advice needed

[Brad2027]

Hey Guys,

Hoping for a little advice, today i tried my first AG brew using a 40Lt Guten system, I decided to keep it simple, didn’t use any apps and just went off what i thought was about right in terms of volume etc….
Brew ended up with a OG of 1.036 which was much lower than the 1.042-46 i was hoping for!

My method was as follows;

5KG of grain
16lt of mash water total, 65C for 60mins
16lt of sparge water at 74C

Total pre boil was around 28lt, post boil ended up around 24lt (was aiming for 23lt so that was ok!) But my OG was low?
Sparge method was batch sparging, nice and slow for about 15mins or so…

Any pointers as to the low OG? Should i of started with more mash water (22lt or so) being the Guten has 6-8lt of dead space and lowered sparge volume? Or have i done something else wrong?
Although i am happy with a mid strength pale i would like to know where i missed the mark…any tips would be appreciated.

Cheers all...

 

[golfandbrew]

Yes,you need to include the deadspace in strike water volume. It's 6.6 litres for the 40/50L Gutens. I imagine your mash was relatively thick. Did you recirc at all?

Did you crush the grain yourself or buy it premilled from a shop?

 

[Brad2027]

Yes,you need to include the deadspace in strike water volume. It's 6.6 litres for the 40/50L Gutens. I imagine your mash was relatively thick. Did you recirc at all?

Did you crush the grain yourself or buy it premilled from a shop?

Grain was shop crushed and yeah I did recirc.. mash was thick until I started the recirc, but I imagine that even with recirc it may not be fully submerging grain?

All learning i guess

 

[golfandbrew]

The grain was likely dry near the bottom but looked okay at the top. probably lucky you didn't run the element dry. Up the strike water next time. Think you'll be right.

Cheers

 

[Jayvan90]

Hey Brad,

For a batch around 5kg of grain I am aiming for 21L into a fermenter - usually gives me a full 19L keg of nice clean beer after cold crash. I usually start at around 31L in the Guten - do my water treatments then pump off around 10ish L for sparge depending on what Brewfather tells me based on grain bill/ recipe etc. So 21ishL water in guten for mash in, I let the bed settle for around 10-20mins before recirc and keep it going through any temp steps I have set in the mash schedule. Manage to average around 75% brew house efficiency and 80-85% mash efficiency which I think are reasonable numbers for the guten system…
Very basic numbers for gluten 40L that I used as a starting point
60min boil
6.6L dead space
1L per kg of grain
2L chiller / trub / transfer to fermenter loss
Mash grain ratio 3L/kg
3L per hr boil off

Hope this helps

 

[Brad2027]

Hey Brad,

For a batch around 5kg of grain I am aiming for 21L into a fermenter - usually gives me a full 19L keg of nice clean beer after cold crash. I usually start at around 31L in the Guten - do my water treatments then pump off around 10ish L for sparge depending on what Brewfather tells me based on grain bill/ recipe etc. So 21ishL water in guten for mash in, I let the bed settle for around 10-20mins before recirc and keep it going through any temp steps I have set in the mash schedule. Manage to average around 75% brew house efficiency and 80-85% mash efficiency which I think are reasonable numbers for the guten system…
Very basic numbers for gluten 40L that I used as a starting point
60min boil
6.6L dead space
1L per kg of grain
2L chiller / trub / transfer to fermenter loss
Mash grain ratio 3L/kg
3L per hr boil off

Hope this helps

Thanks for the advise mate, appreciate that.. I will punch those numbers in GF as a starting point and see how i go.
Thanks again.

 

[Jayvan90]

Edit …
6.6L dead space
1L per kg water loss to grain
2L chiller / trub / transfer to fermenter loss
Mash grain ratio 3L/kg mash thickness

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Hey Guys,

Hoping for a little advice, today i tried my first AG brew using a 40Lt Guten system, I decided to keep it simple, didn’t use any apps and just went off what i thought was about right in terms of volume etc….
Brew ended up with a OG of 1.036 which was much lower than the 1.042-46 i was hoping for!

My method was as follows;

5KG of grain
16lt of mash water total, 65C for 60mins
16lt of sparge water at 74C

Total pre boil was around 28lt, post boil ended up around 24lt (was aiming for 23lt so that was ok!) But my OG was low?
Sparge method was batch sparging, nice and slow for about 15mins or so…

Any pointers as to the low OG? Should i of started with more mash water (22lt or so) being the Guten has 6-8lt of dead space and lowered sparge volume? Or have i done something else wrong?
Although i am happy with a mid strength pale i would like to know where i missed the mark…any tips would be appreciated.

Cheers all...

Before your next brew check the calibration of your temperature, they can be out either way as much as 5C.
I opt for the 'no sparge,' efficiency will drop but just a matter of adding more grain to compensate. My efficiency is generally between 60 -63%, don't get drawn into a pissing contest with numbers. All efficiency relates to is equipment and process. No sparge will knock an hour plus off a brew day, plus according to some create a better beer, I am more into the time saving.
My last brew was a Bohemian Pilsner, I boil like I mean it, so boil off for me is 4 litres per hour. Because it was all Pilsner malt boiled for 90 minutes. I had 34 litres of strike liquor and 6.1 kg of grain OG was 1,054.

 

[Brad2027]

Before your next brew check the calibration of your temperature, they can be out either way as much as 5C.
I opt for the 'no sparge,' efficiency will drop but just a matter of adding more grain to compensate. My efficiency is generally between 60 -63%, don't get drawn into a pissing contest with numbers. All efficiency relates to is equipment and process. No sparge will knock an hour plus off a brew day, plus according to some create a better beer, I am more into the time saving.
My last brew was a Bohemian Pilsner, I boil like I mean it, so boil off for me is 4 litres per hour. Because it was all Pilsner malt boiled for 90 minutes. I had 34 litres of strike liquor and 6.1 kg of grain OG was 1,054.

View attachment 122421

Hey Weal,

Thanks for the tips, Yeah i watched your Guten thread for some time and took alot of your tips on board..

Will definitely check the temperature out, Question, do you know if the new Guten 40L are accurate in terms of side volume measurements or are they a couple of L off? I know i could measure this out myself and test but thought it may be a known thing?

Not sure if i should trust it when measuring out strike water!

Thanks

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Hey Weal,

Thanks for the tips, Yeah i watched your Guten thread for some time and took alot of your tips on board..

Will definitely check the temperature out, Question, do you know if the new Guten 40L are accurate in terms of side volume measurements or are they a couple of L off? I know i could measure this out myself and test but thought it may be a known thing?

Not sure if i should trust it when measuring out strike water!

Thanks

Make up a measuring stick. What I found is the 30 litre mark is 34 litres, the reason being is related to the dead space underneath the grain basket. you will only have to do a few litres then just work out the distance at 2 litre intervals.

 

[Ballaratguy]

The best modification I did to my 40Lt Guten was to put a grainfather Bluetooth control box on it

 

[The lunch man]

I have the 70l guten and found I was getting around 65% efficiency with the shop milled grain. Once I bought my own mill and played around with a few settings efficiency went up to 73-75%